Roadways connect our communities, by providing a quick, convenient pathway to travel across the country. From large cities with twelve lane or more highways in each direction to two-lane country roads, the vehicle roadway has become the preferred mode of transportation in the United States. For all of the benefits provided by vehicle roadways, they also create critical problems. At an increasing rate, these roadways threaten the lives of the very people that drive on them each day.
Since 2011, the US has seen a 5.3% increase in roadway fatalities. Causes of fatalities include aggressive driving, distracted driving, impaired driving, failure to yield, poor judgement, and other varieties of reasons. In 2016 alone, over 40,000 people were killed on U.S. roadways, and countless more were injured. Part of the increase in the total number of road fatalities stems from the improving economy, which has led Americans to drive more miles for both work and pleasure. But that is not the whole story. The number of roadway fatalities as a percentage of miles driven is also increasing.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on campaigns to remind the public of the dangers of impaired driving, aggressive driving, distracted driving and poor judgement on the roadways. These campaigns are passive mechanisms for informing the public of the potential dangers on the roadway. However, most drivers consider these major causes or roadway fatalities to be “everyone else's problem” and not something they personally are doing to increase the level of danger on the roadway for themselves and those in the vehicles around them.
While police and other traffic enforcement officers can try to monitor driving habits and remove or ticket those who fail to drive safely, there are only a limited number of officers to cover the millions of miles of roadway. Further, many of the major causes of roadway fatalities are caused by a limited duration issue, (e.g., distracted driving or aggressive driving) which can be difficult for officers to see unless they are lucky enough to witness the event. Even then it may be too late to stop another fatality. An in-pavement device and system that can actively monitor vehicle and driver behaviors on a roadway and provide instant feedback, either to the particular driver and/or those other drivers in the immediate vicinity, can provide an immediate indicator of roadway issues that can change driver behavior and potentially reduce roadway injuries and fatalities.